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FARNHAM GLACIER, B.C. — Fifty musicians trekked to Farnham Glacier in the Kootenays Saturday to perform for the glacier itself and express their grief about the melting of glaciers with the aptly titled composition Requiem for a Glacier.

“I felt it, as I was playing,” said violinist Gerda Crosthwaite, 74, of Kaslo. “It is farewell to a glacier, feeling sadness it will happen. We cannot stop it any more.”

“It’s an opportunity to help save the glaciers,” said 15-year-old violinist Joy Motzkus. “It’s for the animals and for the next generation.” Her sister, 12-year-old violinist Marla, was the youngest member of the three-generation choir and orchestra.

In addition to the choir and orchestra, another 50 people including sound technicians, mountain guides, film crew, “sherpas” to help carry instruments and technical gear, and drivers travelled the steep mountain road from Invermeer to the glaciers of the Jumbo Valley.

Victoria composer Paul Walde wrote Requiem for a Glacier to bring awareness to melting glaciers in general and particularly to the Jumbo and Farnham Glaciers. Both are within the area approved by the B.C. government to become the Jumbo Glacier mountain resort municipality. That project has been the subject of more than two decades of controversy in the Kootenays.

The piece is in Latin like a traditional requiem, but the text is a translation of the B.C. government news release announcing the approval of the Jumbo Glacier Resort and its published chronology of the approval process.

Walde and Kaslo curator Kiara Lynch came up with the idea of performing on a glacier. Lynch handled the logistics of recruiting and rehearsing a volunteer orchestra and chorus and getting them onto the mountain and back down again safely.

“I feel fantastic about how things went,” Lynch said. The complicated event was remarkably free of even the most minor glitches.

The musicians and singers were volunteers from the Kootenays who had rehearsed and performed only a few times over the previous week. On Saturday, they performed the first movement of the requiem in a forest clearing with the Commander Glacier in the background. Then they drove further up the mountain and hiked a half-hour to a performance stage that was the ice and snow on the toe of the Farnham Glacier.

“It brought tears to my eyes,” said Nelson violinist Margot Zimmer. “It was very moving. The whole concept of bringing this variety of people up here and actually doing this, with all the practicalities involved, it is amazing. And of course it was wonderful to take part in this with my daughter.”

Zimmer’s daughter, oboist Annalea Zimmer, said: “When Paul Walde said we are about to make art history, I thought, I’d like to be a part of that.”

Composer Walde supervised the performances and oversaw his professional sound and film crew’s documentation of it. He is a visual artist as well as a composer, and he has plans for gallery exhibits based on the event. In addition, Small Town Films was on the mountain making a documentary.

Ajtony Csaba was a striking sight, conducting on the glacier wearing traditional concert-hall conductor’s garb. He is the director of the University of Victoria Symphony and the Central European Chamber Orchestra.

Csaba had the challenge of working with a group of musicians unfamiliar with each other and at differing experience levels. Add to that the special difficulties of outdoor large-group performances.

“It was a challenging situation,” he said, “because it was hard for them to hear each other. It was a diffuse acoustical environment. But it was fantastic. I have never experienced anything like this, to perform on snow. It was a very interesting and great experience.”

The other non-Kootenay participant was the Hungarian soprano soloist Veronika Hajdu, who lives in Victoria.

Musically, Requiem for a Glacier is a unique combination of classical and modern. Walde says it has some things in common with classic requiems by Mozart, Brahms, and Britten — certain chords, a sense of solemnity, and the use of a classical choir and orchestra. But at the same time it has a sound associated with modern composers such as Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Meredith Monk.

Placing the “cultural artifact” of a choir and orchestra in a natural setting is Walde’s way of saying that nature is already part of culture, not separate from it, and “if we destroy these places, we are also destroying our culture.”

In addition to art and nature, it was an arduous afternoon dedicated to sunscreen, drinking water, feeding 100 people, and moving around safely in rough terrain. But when it was over, some said they didn’t want to leave.

“I feel like I’m at home here,” said one of the singers. “I’ve bonded with this place through the music.”

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Orchestra travels to Kootenays to play requiem for melting B.C. glacier

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